Samantha Evans, who specializes in sexual health issues at the Student Health Care Clinic, said students are always surprised when she tells them how many students refrain from sex.
"Five percent, 10 percent?" they guess, Evans said.
The number is actually about 34 percent, according to a study released Wednesday that surveyed over 2,500 UF students on health issues.
Nationally, about 31 percent of students didn't have sex in the year before being surveyed, according to the National College Health Assessment from 2007.
Evans said these types of surveys help put myths about student promiscuity to rest by showing what is really going on.
Healthy Gators 2010 conducted UF's survey, which asked two groups of students about 130 questions each in an online survey during spring 2008.
The survey also asked about students' drug and alcohol use.
Almost three-fourths of students said they had consumed alcohol in the last 30 days, while more than one-third said they participated in high-risk drinking, defined as consuming five or more drinks in a sitting, in the past two weeks.
Maureen Miller, an alcohol and other drug prevention specialist at UF's health center, said UF's recent ranking as the No. 1 party school in The Princeton Review's annual school rankings doesn't make any sense because surveys show that high-risk drinking is decreasing.
She blamed The Princeton Review's survey techniques for perpetuating UF's party reputation.
"Their survey is not scientific," she said. "We really don't put any merit in that."
As far as tobacco is concerned, only about 9 percent of students said they smoked cigarettes in the last 30 days, while over 86 percent said they have never smoked in their lifetime.
About 60 percent of students said they had never smoked marijuana.
The survey tackled the issue of mental health.
Almost all students surveyed, about 88 percent, said they felt overwhelmed by all they had to do, according to the survey.
About one percent of students attempted suicide in the past year, and more than one-fifth of students said they considered leaving school because of poor mental health.
Paul Marji, a UF chemistry and biology junior, said he was surprised by the fact that so many people considered leaving school.
However, Marji said the results comforted him as well.
"It's good to know everyone's kind of in the same boat when it comes to those things," he said.
Additional facts from the survey:
l About 56 percent of students used a condom the last time they had vaginal intercourse.
l About 64 percent of students drank 0-4 drinks when they socialized during the two weeks preceding the survey.
l About 95 percent of students indicated that they talked on their cell phone (without the use of hands-free apparatus) while driving a car during the 30 days preceding the survey
l About 6 percent of students consume the recommended five or more servings of fruits and vegetables daily.
